Urethral mobility and its relationship to stress incontinence in women.

Multiple physiologic factors, only one of which is urethral support, make up the female continence mechanism. Abnormal urethral support leads to deficient transmission of abdominal pressure to the urethra, which results in genuine stress incontinence in some women. Many techniques are available for measuring urethral mobility. The determination of urethral mobility is not useful in the diagnosis of urinary incontinence. However, it provides some information about which surgical procedure is most appropriate for the correction of genuine stress incontinence.